Thursday, May 12, 2011

Spring time!

Spring is in the air! The grass is getting green and we have had a couple of warm days. The day I took these pictures it was downright HOT! Today it's 45 degrees and raining. Ah, springtime!

Above is Rock basking in the sunshine. He is becoming such an asset on the place. He's a strong dog with just enough patience to be really good on ewes and lambs. He'll catch and hold a lamb gently now if I need him to. He'll give ewes plenty of time to pick up their lambs and move but if they come out hunting him he quickly puts an end to it. Hopefully I can get a chance to get some trial type work sessions with him in the next few weeks.

We are the same as done lambing. About 3 that are still going to lamb is all. It took 3 weeks and was pretty fast and furious. We had some cold, wet weather that made it a bit difficult but everything is looking good now.


(Fighting for the only sliver of shade)




We had a way higher percentage than normal. I have never had quads before and we had 3 sets of those this year. I need to go through my books and check but I'm pretty sure we had at least 15 sets of triplets as well. Those make for some little lambs that have a ways to go to catch up to the twins and singles. Hopefully with some milk, grass and sunshine they'll get there by fall though.




We have had quite a bit of cattlework in amongst lambing as well. Got the winter take in calves moved out to their home and summer grass. Two days later our summer take in yearlings got here. Preg checked our fall calvers and getting ready to ship our fall calves out as soon as we can get a truck in through the mud. Also hit a few neighbor's brandings in there as well. We're hoping to get ours done at the end of May.


Basically, spring is a time to run around like a chicken with her head cut off trying to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time. Because the next season, haying, is just around the corner! Dustin is thoroughly looking forward to it. Wish I could say the same for me. :-)